On September 5, 1982, 12-year-old Johnny Gosch left his West Des Moines home to deliver newspapers. He never made it back. What followed was a police chief with his own violent history, an FBI that…
A con man with a gift for talking fast and a knack for never getting caught made himself invaluable to the FBI in the late 1970s — and the FBI made him the centerpiece of the biggest political…
In 1979, a federal judge in San Antonio was known for one thing above all else: He did not show mercy. John H. Wood Jr. had earned his nickname the hard way, one maximum sentence at a time. Just…
The roaring '20s of last century were fueled in part by a new industry: filmmaking in Hollywood. Directors were rolling in dough, as were the silver screen's first stars. But in 1921, the future of…
A young woman named Elsie Cameron vanished after delivering an ultimatum to her fiancé, chicken farmer Norman Thorne. Weeks later, investigators dug up his property and found her dismembered remains…
Weeks after a woman's mysterious disappearance, a ship's captain noticed something off about two of his passengers — a quiet, bespectacled man and his teenage "son." He couldn't shake the feeling he'd…
For three years in the late 1970s and into 1980 — before shared databases and DNA evidence — one man moved freely across 11 states trying to start a race war. He changed his name to honor a Nazi…
Three people vanished from a Memphis home in February 1994. A week later, they turned up in a local cemetery, buried in a grave dug for someone else's funeral — held the day after they disappeared,…
Investigators were certain they knew who killed Leslie Preer. Their main suspect had motive, a suspicious alibi, and a failed polygraph. Investigators had everything they needed — except the right…
Twenty-two-year-old Fred Korematsu was parked on a San Francisco hillside with his girlfriend, listening to music on the car radio, when the broadcast stopped on Dec. 7, 1941. In the weeks that…
